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ANTI-PROHIBITION 



ESSAY 



INJUSTICE OF THE PBOHIEITOKY LAW, 



NECESSITY FOR- ITS REPEAL. 



BY 

WILLIAM MONTAGUE 



PKICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. 



BOSTONV 

THE RICE, GODDARD & CO., PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, 

41 Milk Street. 

1872. 



A NTI-PROHIBITION 



BEING AN 



ESSAY 



INJUSTICE OF THE PROHIBITOEY LAW, 



AND THE 



NECESSITY FOR ITS REPEAL. 



*■ 

s 



5 



BY 

WILLIAM MONTAG-UE 



PKICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. 



BOSTON: 

THE RICE, GODDARD & CO., PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, 

41 Milk Street. 

1872. 



50»0 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 

By "William Montague, 

in the Office of the Librarian, at Washington. 



LEAF I. 

In opening this pamphlet of criticism on the Prohibitory Law 
now existent in these New-England States, we wish to assure the 
reader that it is a desire for justice and equity, more than a mer- 
cenary aim, that causes us to enter a protest against a tyrannous 
and more than imperial edict in the land of liberty. When any 
great event, moral, social, or political, happens in this world, we 
look naturally for the cause that has influenced it. Thus the great 
struggle of 1871 between France and Germany, in which the genius 
of the greatest statesman and the military skill of the greatest 
soldier of the last decade, won such immortal fame for Prussia and 
the newly-created German Empire, was caused by a futile desire 
of Napoleon to establish his imperial throne on a firmer footing, 
by a military triumph against a hated foe. Leopold and Spain 
were but the puppets that sufficed to set the monsters by the ears. 
In our own land the Great Rebellion was caused mainly by the 
advancement of the human mind, and it removed the curse 
of black slavery, — it would appear now, but to be replaced by 
while bondage : the victory was bought dearly, but it was worth the 
price. But we ask the thoughtful of mankind, — those who deem 
the world as something more than a place to eat, drink, and sleep 
in, — if there was any just cause for the originating of the present 
Maine law ? It has had a long existence, an existence which has 
been productive of much evil and little good. How many men are 
there at present in New England who with a clear conscience can 
swear that they have never drank liquor? How many of those 
who at present are delivering edifying moral lectures, with much 
rhetoric but little sense, can say, " I never drink, nor never place 
liquor of any nature on the table for my friends " ? Very, very few, 
and those few not gifted with the taste which God has been pleased 
to place within us. But, if we allow that every man who preaches 
temperance, practises temperance (we mean the bigoted temperance 
of " cold water only"), can we also attest that they are moral in 
every other way? By no means. Our acquaintance with advo- 
cates of temperance has proved that abstinence was by no means 



a promoter of other good qualities. " Dickens speaks with gusto 
of the punch-bowl," says a virtuous Boston clergyman, who bor- 
rows addresses and passes them off as the product of his own 
brain ; and we say, if the specimens of both classes that we have 
seen^are types of the whole, that Dickens was right. If drinking 
be a crime, there are worse crimes than drinking ; there is grasping 
avarice ; there is libertinism, there is want of honor, — these three 
and many more. An honest man may own his belief in a tem- 
perate use of liquor, may point to the record of centuries since 
and before the Christian era, may quote the greatest authority 
the world has ever known, the divine Jesus himself, and yet he is 
a criminal, particeps criminis ; no matter if he be in every respect 
honest and upright and true, he is a criminal, an aider and abet- 
ter in avoiding the law. What myriads of criminals have we in 
New England now : criminals of all classes ; great writers whose 
names are like household words among us ; wealthy merchants 
whom fortune and friends have flattered ; true philanthropists who 
spend their lives in doing good and making others happy ; noble- 
hearted, self-denying men, whose quiet lives are, though unnoticed, 
glorious, and who will reap a rich reward hereafter, — these with the 
myriads of others of bad criminals are offenders in the cross-eye 
of the New-England liquor law, not actually accessible to punish- 
ment, but, still, aiders and abetters. But the man of water, even 
if he is cowardly enough to indulge privately behind the door, is 
no criminal ; he may swindle his neighbor out of a few thousands, 
ruin his family, and bring his consumptive wife to the grave, but, 
if he has done it cleverly, and thereby become one of the frater- 
nity of Dives, he is entitled to the fawning of parasites, and respect 
of his equals. He may lead a shameless and abandoned life in 
private, employing his leisure hours in breaking female hearts, and 
satisfying all other appetites but that of drink, and the law ignores, 
while society shuts its eyes at Dives' peccadilloes. What a mon- 
strous reflection it is in the glaring injustice of the law, and the 
stupidity that conceived and executed it, that while a man may 
ruin a woman for life, and, perhaps, untimely drive her to her 
grave, without punishment for the foul deed, if he enters the liquor 
trade he is liable at any time to be treated like a felon, and cast 
into jail with wretches of every degree of crime. A man may 
frequent brothels of low repute, and thus spread misery and crime 
through generations following him, and the law winks and nods as 
much as to remark, " Go it while you are young" ; but the same 



person must not keep a liquor u nuisance." Let us suppose that 
the law was framed with good intentions, even if it has had bad 
counsel in its late revision and execution ; let us suppose that 
Neal Dow and his aids really supposed they could make a Utopian 
paradise of New England, and after exterminating the lesser evils, 
exterminate the great. Has not the law had a fair trial of over 
twenty years? When truly enforced it but drove the trade into 
secret places, and caused it to exercise twice as injurious an influ- 
ence as before ; but for years it has not been enforced, — for years 
it has merely served as a political blind, as a shuttlecock to be 
dashed about by the battledores of either parfr^scores of lazy, 
useless police have made fat fortunes by filling their pockets with 
the bribes of harassed dealers, and those noble men who firmly 
refused bribes or to cease a business which is legal in the eyes of 
sovereign God, if not in those of sovereign man, were seized again 
and again, and made to feel truly how mean and petty a creature 
man can be, " dressed in a little brief authority." 

In the hands of these unscrupulous tools, the trade went on more 
briskly than ever. Then came, lately, the first good and just idea 
that we have had, since the promulgation of the useless law. 
Whoever thought first of the scheme well deserved the thanks of 
the community ; but it should have further been a vote of the entire 
people upon the question of liquor or no liquor ; in a country 
where the people are supposed to rule, this were surely the best 
plan. The question was Beer or no Beer, and the cities, towns, 
and villages of Massachusetts were to vote. We are curious to 
know what the result would have been, if the world was not deceit- 
ful. If every man had gone to the ballot box and deposited his 
vote, not only according to his wishes, but his firm conviction also, 
there is no doubt that beer would be sold universally in Massachu- 
setts. But the opinion of the world is something to be looked upon 
with dread, and the world's opinion undoubtedly influenced those 
places which voted No Beer. There were other influences at work, of 
course, underhand, secret influences such as generally may be found 
in the dirtiest of all human games — politics ; but of that, those who 
have sold their consciences for gain ought to know best, and like 
Judas, undoubtedly, they ere now repent of Ihe price of blood. 
However, the majority of the Beerites was large enough to satisfy 
the advocates of malt liquor, even if they knew not how next to 
impossible it was to get an unprejudiced, honest vote. We have 
an imaginary learned friend, a prohibitionist, with whom as we pro- 



ceed on our tour of explanation, we will occasionally hold converse, 
so as further to elucidate our opinions. He interrupts us now, and 
sagely remarks : — 

u You appear to have forgotten, my noble friend (we are not 
noble, but he does us the honor to consider us so), that those laws 
which you deem so unjust and ridiculous, are framed by legislators 
elected by the people, under the magnificent ballot system of our 
noble, free, and unequalled country." 

" We are well aware, sir, of this, we are aware of many of those 
blessed privileges of freedom which we enjoy, and we shall but 
need a few improvements to make our system perfect. Let us 
introduce a bill into the national senate, through some of our 
worthy friends, decreeing that we must pay a tax on the air we 
breathe. We pay now for houses, our clothes, our horses, our dogs, 
our watches, our everything. If we travel in Maine we might as 
well be at the mercy of the Spanish inquisition of old ; we are 
liable at any time to be knocked down and robbed ; our persons, 
sacred even in the worst despotisms of Europe, searched, and our 
lives, if we are cursed with delicate nerves, endangered ; if we are 
of stout heart, like Sir John Falstaff, and resist boldly, we are 
arrested for assault and battery ; if we be of a revengeful disposi- 
tion, and lay a complaint against our molesters, we are informed it 
is the benevolent liquor law of Maine. . Again, if we travel (having 
been accustomed in other and happier climes to do as we would, if 
we had the necessary funds) with a flask in our pocket, meet an 
old friend, and invite him cheerily to take a horn, we are liable to 
be arrested and cast into jail, — for what? for being a liquor drum- 
mer, — that is, a man whose misfortune it is to understand the bus- 
iness of selling liquor. 

Well, now for our other privileges, the glorious privilege of 
electing the man we think will be honest in his endeavors for the 
public good ; we have that privilege with thousands of others ; we 
use it, thousands abuse it. The man with brains drives round in 
an attractive turn-out to the man without brains, and tries first the 
strength of specious flattery, which is almost sure to succeed with 
that class of gentlemen who think they were born to be admired, 
and that the world does not contain others as noble as themselves ; 
but, where flattery fails to influence, money will corrupt. The 
unthinking laborer cares little whether he elect Grant or Davis, 
Greeley or Adams, his ideas on the subject being at best but a 
reflection of the news^of whatever newspaper he happens to read 



Hence the great power of the press ; but if an inducement of five 
dollars or treble that be offered, — for it is on record that one 
hundred dollars gained a vote in New Hampshire at the last elec- 
tion, — he readily votes, unless he be an uncommonly honest man, the 
way he is wished to, hence the wire-pullers and the wires. That 
these wire-pullers use despicable meanness to elect their candidate 
is not to be denied, but, dear me, sir, they are virtuous, if they 
only do not drink. Thus are elections gained, and universal male 
suffrage proved nothing better than a humbug ; there are much 
fewer honest voters, we think, than bought voters, and that party 
which can command the most money and influence is sure to gain 
the day, no matter how much stronger in numbers their adversaries 
originally were ; hence the late Republican victories in New Eng- 
land. We are not politicians, have no personal interest at stake 
in the success of either party, think both have great faults and 
great virtues, but a blind man could see that the late elec- 
tions were gained by the republicans, only through barefaced 
fraud. 

" Why, then," says my republican and prohibitory acquaintance, 
" if the number of drinking men so far exceeds the disciples of 
cold water, is it not noble in the republicans to espouse the cause of 
the weaker party, and thus lose many votes ? " 

" On the contrary, .my friend, the democrats being avowed cham- 
pions of license, the republican party could not easily become 
champions also ; but could they have done so, we doubt not they 
would have deemed it expedient to adopt the patronage of the 
n moral side " apparently, while aiding the liquor dealers by wink- 
ing at the law, thus killing two birds with one stone, and discom- 
fiting the democrats in each case." 

But Governor Perham being probably a just man as regards his 
prohibitory ideas, has shown the inhabitants of Maine that he can 
and will execute the law, even if in so doing he ruins the State. We 
are accustomed to make favorable comparisons between the state of 
affairs in our enlightened New England and the European monar- 
chies,but leaving England out of the question, as far too free a nation 
for us at present even to dare to hope for, let us select Russia and 
state our solemn conviction, that it is quite as agreeable and pleas- 
ant now to be a member of the great Russian nation as to dwell in 
enlightened Maine. It is true that the Emperor's fiat may decide 
the fate of any unlucky individual who may have offended his dig- 
nity, but if he strives not to irritate his sovereign, or to break 



8 

just laws, his person is safe from the desecrating touch of any 
wretch who takes a fancy to search him. 

Let us turn now to the press ; it is the reflex of public opinion, 
and the greatest adjunct to liberty ; indeed without the press true 
liberty could not exist. This powerful betrayer of public senti- 
ment is almost unanimous in denunciation of the present prohibi- 
tory law. Boston has nine daily newspapers ; of these, one is 
supported by a clique of prohibitionists, and is edited by a clergy- 
man, which fact does not prevent it from being the most watery 
specimen of journalism we have ever witnessed. The arguments 
in favor of prohibition prove that however much its editor may be 
acquainted with celestial matters, he is deplorably ignorant of the 
terrestrial events daily passing under his nose. He is a sort of 
double Major Jones (the Massachusetts Chief of Police), with 
no open bars in Boston, decrease of villany, etc., as if we 
had not eyes to see with, and our ears for the purpose of 
hearing. Another larger sheet professes temperance and ap- 
plauds prohibition, but its remarks are so contradictory, and 
the views of its various editors differ, so greatly, that we do not 
esteem its opinions of great value ; we may see a statement in one 
issue and a direct contradiction in the next ; yet as the paper is a 
good advertising medium ; and has once in a while some pleasant 
knowledge from Hazewell's vigorous pen, besides being ably con- 
ducted as a general thing, it is very popular. But the other seven, 
the strongly democratic old " Post," with its magnificent leaders on 
all subjects, and its cheery wit, humor, and sarca.sm ; the pon- 
derous " Advertiser," with its ponderous articles, and the best 
musical and dramatic critic of our city ; the dashing " Globe," 
with its columns of fine print, and its excellent foreign intelligence 
columns ; the watery " Transcript," the personal and ambiguous 
" Herald," and the spirited little " Times," — all form a strong 
majority in favor of a sound license system, and against the pres- 
ent unreasonable and impossible law. They are willing to acknowl- 
edge that men must drink ; that it is impossible to prohibit a part 
of a man's nature ; that prohibition can only lead to seclusion, 
disguise, and concealment, and that liquor drinking is not an evil, 
if moderation be observed. We have selected Boston as an 
example of the position assumed by the press, as in Maine the 
papers, aware of the power of the law, and the strength of the 
prohibitionists, are non-committal. As the press is five to one 
against the present condition of affairs, so are the people, who are 



9 

the reflection of the press, as the press is the reflection of the peo- 
ple. The only unpopular paper in Boston is the one devoted to 
prohibition, not because it has not a spark of true ability, but 
because it advocates the present law and indulges in nonsensical 
assertions and arguments to support its position. There is a paper 
also published here weekly, devoted to anti-prohibition, — a paper 
with even less ability than the journal of temperance, a paper 
which dare not be printed in a community less enlightened (?) 
than ours, and yet it is, perhaps, the most prosperous weekly in our 
city. Nearly every weekly, semi-weekly, or tri-weekly in the city 
either openly ridicules or covertly sneers at prohibition. And 
yet, even as President" Grant is allowed to inaugurate in a free 
country a despotism at Washington, through the corruption of 
those in whose hands the safety of the nation is placed, so are a 
few men banded together able to defy the will of the great people 
on account of the bribery and corruption peculiar to our elections. 
It is time that we should cast off the shackles of slavery, which 
are slowty yet surely binding us in their iron claws, and proclaim 
with trumpet tongue -our sentiments. The day must come and 
soon, for a social revolution, if no better laws can be devised than 
those at present existent on our statute books. We have fearful 
warnings from France, where anarchy and horror have resulted from 
the desire of the people to be truly free. The men who in the 
hour of danger will not assist to repeal an unjust, tyrannous, anl 
scandalous law, should beware of the smothered vengeance of a 
patient people tried too long. 



I/EAF II. 



Thirty years of trial, and utter failure : such is the record of 
prohibition. Many of us can recall the miracles that were to be 
performed when the first genius of cold water exploded his grand 
idea. New England was to be regenerated, cold water universally 
established, and hand-shaking become the fashion, instead of fisti- 
cuffs. Twenty years of trial, and what is the result? Do we be- 
hold a peaceful, loving community, striving to surpass each other 
in acts of generosity aiid kindness? 0, no, horrors upon horrors 
of every description are multiplying daily. Do we find the State, 
that twenty years ago was prosperous and happy, still, owing to 
prohibition, increasing in prosperity ? No ; on the contrary, we 



10 

look with sadness on a ruined state, and ruined too by the mis- 
taken doctrine of prohibition : it requires but a few years more of 
prohibition and Maine may become but a name, a desert such as it 
was hundreds of 3-ears ago. Till lately and for years past in Maine, 
the law has lain torpid, a farce unexecuted and laughed at, a law 
as much obeyed as is that forbidding prostitution or beggary ; but 
the new governor of the State, assisted by democrats and republi- 
cans alike, but for different reasons, has managed to pass the most 
outrageous law that ever disgraced any civilized nation on the face 
of the earth. A law that makes every man a spy on his neighbor, 
that renders deceit a duty, and revenge an easy task ; that permits 
officers of justice to search a defenceless woman, and take what lib- 
erties they will with her person, if they conceive that she has 
liquor concealed about her ; a law which drains the capital of the 
State, and robs the farmer even of his hard-earned gains ; a law, 
in short, that tramples on and blots out the last fragment of liberty 
left to our suffering people : and this vile product of mistaken leg- 
islation is to stop the sale of liquors in the State of Maine. 

We have lately passed through Portland, and instituted in- 
quiries ; the law has been enforced there and each man is a spy on 
his neighbors ; the liquor-dealers stand at the street corners with 
lowering faces and determined looks, ready to detect any culprit 
who strives to make an honest penny. " Why," you ask them, u do 
you turn on your neighbor"? — " Why? why to crush the law." To 
crush the law, we have to arouse all the worst passions of a man's 
heart ; to crush the law, we have to become hypocrites and cowards. 
We pass through the silent streets : great heavens ! can this be the 
nourishing city of twenty years ago? Twenty-six thousand inhab- 
itants, a fine well-built town, but where are the people? The streets 
are deserted, dead, and silent, except when some listless indi- 
vidual saunters by, evidently with no fixed idea what to do next ; 
the very dogs lay drowsily on the door steps, and the proprietors 
of the stores stand with lugubrious faces, and their hands in their 
pockets, waiting, like Micawber, for something to turn up. We 
step into this great hotel, a seeming sign of prosperity, and ad- 
dress the landlord, — 

" Well, how is business, my friend? " 

u Nothing doing, sir ; the prohibitory law has ruined Portland, 
and will ruin Maine." We were told that a stranger alighted at 
the '.' Falmouth " the other|day , and conceiving that a u horn " would 
be advisable before tea, ordered a cocktail ; he was informed that 



11 

the Maine law was not only in vogue, but enforced, that they dare 
not obey him ; he immediately called back the cab, and left the 
city. Thus, after a time, strangers will shun Maine, as much too 
virtuous an abiding place for this good j^ear of grace 1872. We 
inquired of some influential liquor men, as intelligent, able, and 
courteous gentlemen as ever graced any trade, what the} T were 
going to do. " Going West," was the reply. " If Governor 
Perham is anxious to ruin the State, we must only assist him." 

A large amount of. capital, of course, is in the possession of 
these gentlemen, and it will be invested elsewhere. The 
farmers, not allowed to deal in cider, will probably not content 
themselves with grumbling, but exhibit their dissatisfaction in 
some tangible shape ; the present operation of the prohibitory law 
in short, if it be strictly enforced, must in a few months ruin the 
State. In Bangor the case is different : the law is just as strin- 
gent, but the liquor dealers are more daring than in Portland, and 
have numerous contrivances, some very ingenious, too, to defeat 
the myrmidons of the law. These contrivances, however (which 
be assured we will not betra}'), will not permit a large quantity 
of liquor to be kept, and the stock of these " lawless wretches" te 
generally composed of that vilest of ail compounds known under 
the slang name of " rot gut," but, in realit} r , no better than raw 
spirits ; the result of the prohibitory law enforced in Bangor and 
some other Maine cities, is the substitution of bad liquor for good, 
and the consequent demoralization of both buyer and seller. We 
have yet to come to the most outrageous feature of the law, which 
so shocked our notions of consistency (and we esteem it as a 
jewel), that we came near expressing dissatisfaction in an audible 
manner, w r hen, who knows, but we might nave been arrested as 
one of those " walking nuisances,"' the liquor drummers of New 
England : we allude to the State agencies. These State agencies 
are supposed to provide pure liquors of every description, which 
are only to be sold for medicinal purposes ; the quantity of medi- 
cine which has been sold these last few weeks in the State is pro- 
digious. But why, in the name of Justice, are such men to 
procure what able men are prohibited from? a man in health is 
surely able to bear more than a man in sickness. Satan is said to 
be the father of lies ; if so, the number of his children is perfectly 
frightful. There are very few of us, who are not only liars in some 
shape or other, but cause others to lie, too ; even you, my dear 
madam, rich and virtuous as you are, who were " not at home " 



12 

yesterday to that odious bore, Brown. We think an habitual 
drunkard, a desperate drunkard, or even a sober-minded gentle- 
man fond of liquor, might not scruple to tell a lie (even if it was 
necessary, which we don't believe) to obtain liquor. Then the 
habitual drunkard ma}' get maudlin, and the desperate drunkard 
go and murder somebody, and the sober-minded gentleman go 
home and enjoy himself, despite the prohibitory law of Maine. 
Ah, you say, my virtuous friend, that even poison is sometimes 
administered to sick people, and that liquor is often necessary in 
cases of sickness ; without admitting this, we beg to remark on the 
awful state of disease that must have prevailed in Maine last year, 
when tens of thousands of dollars worth of liquor was sold for 
medicinal purposes. Nor is the liquor sold at this agency in the 
slightest degree purer than that sold by the great liquor firms of 
Boston and New York. It is a disgrace to allow this agency to 
remain, while honest men are cast out in the streets for the same 
offence, and deprived, in some instances, of the means of support 
for their families. It was but a few days since that a man in one 
of our prohibitory towns died in prison from shame ; he was 
ljonest, hard working, and industrious, and he was twice or thrice 
seized, and at last sent to jail, for attempting to make a livelihood. 
He died from shame, and the men who framed the law that killed 
him, are surely little better than murderers ; guilty men never 
die from shame, it is the innocent victims who cannot survive the 
shock. 

" But," says the advocate of prohibition, " why did he not 
adopt a just and legal trade?" — "Because, my honest friend, in 
the first place his trade should be honest and legal if it is not ; and 
in the second, the shoemaker finds a difficulty in becoming a tailor, 
the grocer in selling dry goods. The liquor trade requires appren- 
ticeship as well as another, and it is as hard to excel in it as any. ' 
— " Well, why did he not close up ? " Because he could not starve, 
and for the same reason that the thousand liquor shops of Boston 
to-day are not closed. He had looked on the law as one of those 
political schemes which are the curse of the country at the present 
day, and, knowing that the law had not been executed, deemed him- 
self safe. 

Why do they not close the liquor shops in Boston ? Because 
they dare not. Because such a step would either stir the smoul- 
dering embers "into a fearful blaze, or if resistance should prove at 
last unavailable, a migration to New York would ensue, which 



13 

would ruin Boston, as Portland has been ruined, and the other 
Maine cities will be, if the law continues. 

" But what is your remedy?" asks our impatient and imaginary 
acquaintance, the prohibitionist. " You surely will acknowledge 
the harm that proceeds from the low groggeries which have made 
New York such a den of wickedness." Friend, we are glad to 
agree with you ; we do want a sound license system, a system 
granting the right to sell liquor, only to good, responsible men, whose 
very respectability would prevent them from giving liquors to a 
man already intoxicated ; we want a law, punishing by imprison- 
ment with no resource to fine, the dealer who gives liquor to a man 
in a state of inebriation ; prohibiting the retail sale of liquor to 
minors ; and finding a sufficient number of officers to execute it ; 
with such a law we are sure that drinking could do no harm. "While 
there is no proof, nor can be afforded any proof, that liquor in mod- 
eration is deleterious either physically or morally, there is much to 
be said to show that it is useful in promoting health. 

How often do we hear the hackneyed assertion of the ruin of the 
poor Indian by the introduction of " fire-water in their domain?" 
What a pity thus to basely ruin him. We gave them what they 
owned, so generously, took such care not to intrude on their hunt- 
ing grounds, taught them such beautiful lessons of faith, hope, and 
charity, observed so strictly the sanctity of their women, did every- 
thing to multiply their race, but gave them " fire-water." Look at 
the consequence of the " fire-water " ; the American nation, with 
others of lesser note, have parcelled out the poor Indians' territory, 
they are driven hither and thither by the cruel shepherd Uncle 
Sam (who is anj^thing but a good shepherd who k gives his life for 
his sheep), they are dwindling rapidly, and now only number a 
few thousands to the millions of old ; all on account of " fire- 
water." When America and the Indians were discovered, both in 
their primitive innocence, especially as regards clothing, the copper- 
colored were a peaceful generation of braves employed principally 
in sallying forth and scalping each other, and in generally imitat- 
ing the manners of dogs. At that time they did not know of the fire- 
water ; these ferocious scalpers are yet extant, and occasionally 
carry terror into the hearts of the whites, yet they have not tasted 
" fire-water." What a change now ; the greater majority of the 
Indians are peaceful, clothed, educated, useful, and happy, all on 
account of " fire-water " ; a very sad change, truly ! 

We have not yet learnt at what eminent medical college the 



14 

fraraers and prosecutors of the present law were educated ; their 
knowledge of the cause of all the crimes of the day is contained 
in so small a compass — the one word drink, in fact — that they 
must be as extraordinarily learned surgeons, as was Bunsby a 
specimen of moving wisdom. We have not only enjoyed ( ?) some 
little experience in medicine ourselves, but have had the pleasure 
of hearing the opinion of one of Boston's greatest physicians, a 
man whose skill is a marvel to all who know him (if any aquatic 
brother doubts this, we are ready and willing to forward name 
and address, Box — , Boston P. 0., and they can bear testimony 
thereafter to the extent of his skill) ; this gentleman says that a 
moderate consumption of any liquor is more beneficial than inju- 
rious to most constitutions, and that, if a man has been accustomed 
to it from childhood upwards, it is exceedingly injurious for him to 
cease. 

" Ay/' says my friend, " let us teach our babies not to drink, and 
there will be no difficulty." 

" Very true ; but, first, we come then to ' moral suasion,' which 
we commend strongly ; and, secondly, children are endowed with 
wonderful powers of imitation, which render them perpetual tor- 
ments to a nervous person ; now it is the scissors, now papa's 
razor, and now mamma's needle ; so, if we set the example, they 
aie sure to follow it, and, if we do not (as you would not, of 
course) , if baby should fail very ill, and be near unto death, brandy 
is needed to revive the little spark of life, and this is the first 
tasting, but rarely the last." 

It will be generally found, we think, that men fond of naught in 
the bibulous line but cold water, are of such a temperament as to 
render liquor disagreeable to their senses. 

Let us look around now on the world in general, my friends, 
and see what evil or what good liquor is doing there ; bringing 
people to drunkards' graves, my immaculate friend would say ; 
perhaps a few, but we will prove, satisfactorily we trust, in a com- 
ing chapter, that there are a few more destructive passions in the 
world, beside that of liquor. A great amount of liquor is sold in 
Canada ; we think people drink more generally there than in this 
country ; yet we hear little of drunkards' graves, but see a magni- 
ficent, hardy race of men, worthy of their ancestry, brave, cour- 
ageous, and noble, and forming a favorable contrast to some of our 
patrons of typical Eden, who, perhaps from the fact of their 
absorbing love of Mammon, are generally endowed with sallow 



15 

countenances, tobacco-infected breath (some persist that tobacco 
is more injurious to mind, body, and brains than liquor), and 
stooping forms. We glance at England, and behold another people 
noted for their consumption of every description of liquors, from 
the cheap and harmless lager to the bright and foaming cham- 
pagne : the lords and peasants of the country are alike in this 
respect — they both drink liquor. Do we see millions cast into 
drunkards' graves?! On the contrary, we behold a wonderful 
nation, with a marine equal to that of the world combined, and 
colonies embracing the earth ; a nation of heroes, and one that for 
centuries has supplied us with immortal names, which have made 
its literature the greatest of all time. A country that from a small 
island parcelled among many kings, has become an empire far sur- 
passing that of ancient Rome. Southward to France, the land of 
brandy, though not of drink. The French do not drink as earnestly 
as the English, Americans, or Germans ; their volatile nature 
betrays itself in this as in other things, and the French have ever 
been a remarkably temperate nation. We regret, however, that it 
has not bred other virtues far more important ; religion is but a 
name in France, a matter of crime, confession, and absolution, and 
of absolution, confession, and crime. The theatres keep open on 
Sundays, and the French theatres are the wickedest in the world ; 
the ladies promenade on Sundays, and the French ladies are the 
wickedest in the world ; the gentlemen peruse French novels, and 
they (the novels) are the wickedest in the world, Sunday in 
France, indeed, is a day of idle amusement and unthinking pleas- 
ure, and the French may tamper with time by even worse recre- 
ations than drinking. To Germany, the empire which through 
the political power of Bismark and the military genius of Von 
Moltke, has, of late, become so mighty ; the country which has 
produced Goethe and Schiller ; which is notable for the sober-minded, 
plodding, industrious character of its inhabitants ; which contains, 
perhaps, the jolliest, roundest, and most happy people on earth, 
and which yet is pre-eminent in those two supposed vices which are 
so much decried, viz., drinking and smoking. The Germans 
drink and smoke universally, in all places and at all times. How 
quickly, if Congress were to pass a general prohibitory law, would 
the powerful German element of the United States return to their 
dearly-loved Vater-land ! Lager has become a standard beverage 
throughout the States, and it is as easy to get intoxicated on lager 
as on brandy, if one takes enough ; sensible men, however, do not 



16 

wish to get intoxicated ; there is always something wrong about the 
habitual drinker.; idleness, sottishness, loss of fortune,loss of friends, 
savageness, etc., and these qualities and misfortunes would only be 
exhibited in some worse aspect, if they did not drink. Italy and 
Spain are temperate countries, but it would be hard to show what 
good it has clone them ; of them more anon. They have a prohibitory 
law in Turkey, but it is influenced by religion, the prophet Maho- 
met having forbidden wine, and if we were Mahometans and not 
Christians, we would esteem the prohibitionists correct in aiding 
and abetting religious doctrines, instead of ignoring them. Of 
course the Turks are not particularly obedient to their prophet's 
commands (nor are we in our faith to those of God), but still the 
restriction has a great effect on a large number of the faithful, who 
would rather die than be discovered in a state of inebriation ; the 
nation is accordingly most temperate, and perhaps this is the 
reason it is termed the " sick man." Russia, on the contrary, has 
of late been giving the law to Europe, and the Russians are strong 
drinkers. But we need not go away from our own country if we 
wish to prove that liquors, generally speaking, are not injurious. 
While Portland and Augusta, Me. (the only places we know of at 
present where the liquor law is absolutely enforced and obeyed), 
are about the most forlorn and miserable places imaginable, though 
one is the capital, and the other the largest city in the State, the 
rest of Maine and the United States show daily proof of the enter- 
prise, energy and pluck of the great American people ; especially 
in the great west is liquor universal, and especially in the west 
are the men most enterprising and courageous among us. * Let us, 
then, extinguish drunkenness and immorality if we can, but not 
perpetrate the great and shameful injustice of visiting on the heads 
of the deserving many, the sins of the undeserving few. 



LEAP III. 



There can exist no greater error in the treatment of any subject 
than that of fanaticism ; to come to a proper understanding of 
any great moral, social, or political question, it is necessary to 
divest one's mind of all prejudice and preconceived ideas, and to 
accept different theories as at least tenable. The ardent prohi- 



17 

bitionists are the most hardened of fanatics ; it is in vain to beg 
that they may open their resolute eyes, or hearken with their reso- 
lute ears : the calm, sober-minded tourist, bent on exploration, is 
astounded to perceive with what dogged obstinacy they will adhere 
to but one idea. 

" Liquor is the father of crime," they will say ; " prevent the 
sale of it, and crime will cease." And if we reply iu astonish- 
ment : — 

" Surely, my dear sir, you must acknowledge that at least three 
fourths of the offences committed nowadays, are performed with- 
out the assistance of any intoxicating fluid," he will shake his 
head gravely, and sagely remark, that liquor is the root of all evil. 
We do not defend drunkenness, heaven forbid ! but it is a fact that, 
if we take a dozen men in different stages of intoxication, we are 
likely to find eleven of them either incapable of committing a 
crime, or in a state of good-humored imbecility, more amusing 
than frightful to behold. The monstrous injustice of the present 
law is shown by the fact that the moderate drinkers (who regard 
wines and liquors merely as a delicacy or refreshment, and not as 
a means of loss of sense) are compelled to suffer, while the habit- 
ual drunkard can obtain the true poison as before, and wink at the 
tyrannical and unjust law. If the sale of liquor were an evil, 
which we cannot conscientiously allow, we woild pronounce it one 
of those necessary evils which must remain till the Millennium. 

The Sabine women were all prostitutes ; they were regarded 
merely as articles of merchandise to be cast from hand to hand, 
till death relieved them from the strange existence they knew as 
life. Of course we hold up our hands in that virtuous horror which 
it is so agreeable to exercise if there be no inconvenience attached 
to it. 

" What a nation ! " we exclaim, " what brutalized and degraded 
specimens of that noble and perfect animal, man ; no fate surely 
was too bad for them ! " 

We wonder how many of our thousands of nineteenth century 
saints are sincere, and truly unaware of the awful state of moral 
cancer, with which our present society is impregnated. It is a 
legal crime to drink a glass of wine after dinner, ay, or help a 
suffering brother who begs a little liquor to strengthen him, on his 
way ; it is no legal crime to go out in the health and strength of 
manhood, and in the pride of wealth, and with fallacious promises 
to seduce some struggling, wretched creature, left to choose be- 
2 



18 

tween shame and the river. In the small hours of morning, my 
immaculate brethren of cold water, the virtue of our cities sleeps, 
and vice puts on her beauteous seeming, and stalks rampant o'er 
the land. These bagnios with their crowds of shameless women 
ready to barter their souls for gold ; the wretches who stream 
into them, and the innocent youths who learn their first step in 
crime through the medium of some elderly instructor, who has 
taught them that innocence and virtue are fit but to be laughed and 
jeered at in this fast age, all form a vast picture of nightly crime. 
From that polluted atmosphere, and those more polluted living 
frames, steal in the gray twilight all ages, classes, ranks, and sta- 
tions ; many on whom the clutch of foul disease has already laid 
its indelible mark. Is it bad training, early temptation, want of re- 
ligion, jeers of comrades, and premature passions that has caused 
this ? No, it is drink ! The extent and character of most of these 
bagnios is probably not known to the immaculate few in the 
small cities of Maine and the other New England States, as in the 
great Bay State metropolis itself; if we wish to learn for our own 
edification the fearful increase of immorality, we can behold it almost 
everywhere. Close to the mansions of the wealthy and virtuous 
(not that we wish to class the adjectives together by any means) 
may be seen palaces of sin and crime, where the scions of the pe- 
culiar American aristocracy (monied-ocrsicy more properly) pass 
their leisure hours, while the fond parents picture to themselves the 
innocent pleasures in which their boys indulge. It is not manly 
to drink ; everybody knows (and everybody is a many-headed 
monster) what a degrading spectacle either a chronic or an occa- 
sional drunkard presents ; but it is manly to boast of femimine 
conquests, and achievements in the pursuit of lust, to become men 
(and brutes it might be added) before our time. As there is no 
more pure and tender influence for good than that of a true and 
perfect woman, so is there nothing so completely demoralizing as 
the injurious effect of a false woman's society " ; and we venture to 
assert that a great majority of the horrors with which the news- 
papers have teemed of late years, can be traced to the influence of 
that part of the gentler portion of mankind, who with powerful 
minds and bad hearts can wield such a terrible influence by means 
of their charms. It would be a sad calculation indeed, if we were 
to plunge into the dismal records of criminality, and ascertain the 
misery, disaster, and crime that has resulted from the society of 
evil women. Can we prohibit women of evil tendencies, orj those 



19 

fallen through circumstance and desire? No. Can we prohibit 
the sale of liquor? No. 

We may act in the same manner with each ; enact stringent reg- 
ulations, crowd our streets with officers of justice, and transform 
our cities into a second revolutionary Paris in our efforts to pre- 
vent the sale of liquor and of women ; but though we may drive it 
into secret places and curious devices, and may cause men and 
women, through the sheer spirit of obstinacy with which humanity 
is blessed, to plunge deeper into drink and crime, we can never 
attain our millennium through any prohibitory statutes, no matter 
how ardently enforced. Throw off all restrictions, punish the 
drunkard as before, and let men and women join in the noble work 
of moral suasion for all evils, and we may still work wonders in 
the great vineyard. 

There is much written in support of, and against, the morality 
of the stage, and both sides of the question admit of a good deal 
of argument. The greatest writer who ever lived was an actor, 
and yet that wonderful and melodious master of song was both a 
sot and a libertine ; as he wrote for all time, so did he write for the 
present emergency, in the lament of Cassio, " Oh, that men should 
put'an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" The 
master of novelists, the cheery, genial Dickens, the man whom 
all true lovers of the best of fiction held so near and dear, was a 
great amateur actor, and could have gained almost any height, had 
he wished, on the ladder of theatrical fame ; yet we hear now 
dark hints of his manner of living, and the gusto with which, in 
his beautiful prose-poem, " A Christmas Carol," he speaks of the 
punch bowl. To the stage, it must be acknowledged by all not 
blinded by fanaticism, we owe much. But at the present day we 
are retrograding so fast that we will soon arrive at the theatrical 
customs of the Roman emperors from Caesar till Nero, when stage 
pageants were but a name for the grossest immorality and licen- 
tiousness. Simpering misses of thirteen and boys of twelve, with 
those delightful new dresses which everybody must admire, and 
those conquering faces, which they are so well aware, alas ! how to 
adorn to the best advantage, sit unblushingly through performances 
which a hundred years ago old men would have blushed to see. 
Brazen and half-nude females, stuffed, painted, and bedizened, too 
abandoned to care for aught but the ruin of others, comprise for 
the most part what is known as " ladies of the ballet " at the pres- 
ent day. The dress in which they appear at such spectacles as the 



20 

'•Black Crook" must be disgusting to all minds with the least 
sentiment of refinement, and possessing the least particle of shame. 
Why, if Henry VIII was alive, it must bring a blush to the hoary old 
sinner's cheek. Yet our immaculate sons and daughters can visit 
these entertainments (innocent amusements,youknow ; poor things, 
they know nothing of right and wrong). That is the trouble, they do 
not ; if they did, they would probably know how to choose the good 
and refuse the bad, and then we would not see Master Somebody, the 
son of the well known millionnaire, and hardly turned seventeen, 
steal surreptitiously behind the scenes and emerge therefrom, 
shortly afterwards, with a magnificently dressed lady, who, if our 
eyes were not mistaken, we had before observed, in tights, span- 
gles, and brazenness, dancing a pas-de-seul. Weil, this, according 
to our worthy friend, the impossible idealist, does not proceed from 
the influence of the trashy drama, but from drink. " Depend on 
it, sir," our friend says, " that boy's first step in crime was drink ; 
he has learnt the use of liquor (perhaps the abuse), and it has 
ruined him." Of course ; he has seen the woman in the wine! 

A person may be perfectly innocent of smoking and drinking, 
and yet descend to a very low ebb of morality. We wonder 
which causes the most deaths on earth, jealousy or liquor? we do 
not mean jealousy diluted with liquor, but jealousy pure. Among 
the laziest, most useless, and yet fiercest people on earth are the 
Italians and Spaniards, — the one a nation distinguished for its 
music, its Tasso, and its statuary ; the other for the stiletto, law- 
lessness, and the danger of travel. Sojourning in either country, 
one is liable at any moment to become acquainted with the Great 
Mystery. It is a curious comment on the denunciation of liquor 
that these countries are the most temperate on the face of the globe. 
A dark-eyed senorita, with olive complexion and raven tresses, or 
one of those Italian Countess Guiccolis of whom the libertine 
Byron sung, do much more harm with their "killing" glances in 
those tropical climates, than would all the Medford rum that is 
being sold daily within the limits of the Maine law. Beauty in 
the hands of an unscrupulous woman is a terrible power. 

Another of the enemies of virtue that infects great cities and 
small alike is our gambling resorts. It is useless to say that 
gambling could not exist without liquor ; there are many sub- 
stances far more deleterious in effect than an immoderate use of 
liquor, which would be instantly employed, if it were possible to 
stop the sale of that universal article of many natures known in 



21 

America as Rum, and as Gin in England. No ; gambling is one 
of those moral festers which it is impossible to remove without 
destining the whole fabric of society as now constituted ; the 
only course is to restrain it as much as possible. Another great 
agency of death is despair, and gambling is often the direct cause ; 
men in despair often take to drink, being ready to die, but wishing 
to die an easy and gradual death, and yet at their demise we have 
the news conveyed to us as " The curse of drink ; awful end of a 
drunkard ; " if he had directly committed suicide he would have 
been universally reprobated. Our gambling-7ieZ/s (it is a good 
title) are frequented nightly by thousands of men, whom the all- 
absorbing passion has ruined forever ; they need drink to support 
their haggard courage through the weary night, — thus they drink. 
But if they had not liquor, they could easily find stimulants a 
thousand times worse for the body and brain. It is a sweeping 
assertion, but we conceive ourselves justified in saying that no 
murder is ever committed through the direct agency of drink ; 
some other master passion is lurking at the bottom of the evil ; 
but with the fanatics, it is all " drink." Besides the housesof ill- 
fame, the gambling dens, the obscene theatrical entertainments, 
and filthy sheets, which are all a source of great profit to their 
owners, and of u learning how to be manly " in the school of life 
to those youths who do not drink and those that do, there is 
another growing evil which of late has been assuming great pro- 
portions, and bids fair to prove another foul channel of sin, to be 
shielded under that convenient word, drink; it is the houses of 
sham spiritualistic mediums. We do not mean to laugh at the 
idea of spiritual communication, or to doubt that there may be a 
true spiritualistic faith, because we would advocate free thought in 
all religions ; but we call attention to those hideous excrescences 
which drain the pockets of their unf >rtunate victims with scanda- 
lous impositions. It is only the other day that a lad living near 
us in one of the streets of the Bay State metropolis, committed 
suicide while in a state of religious frenzy inspired by spiritualistic 
meetings, and conversations with noted mediums. There could be 
no drink in this instance ; the child was but fifteen, and yet he 
left this bright and beautiful world, with a life useful to himself 
and his fellow-men before him, because he had had his brain turned 
by the machinations of the wicked. Religious fanatics, broken 
hearts, jealous furies, idiotic and maniacal rage, brutalized man- 
hood, lustful insanity, daring scoundrelism, contempt of law, and 



22 

the hundreds of other causes of unnatural death ; do ye all proceed, 
as our fanatical acquaintance informs us, from drink, or are ye not 
rather the result of our advanced state of civilization in this nine- 
teenth century? 



LEAP IV. 



If we Were to assume that the doctrines of the prohibitionists 
were correct, and that it is possible to stop the sale of the various 
beverages which, since Adam, have been used by man for pleasure 
and excitement, for sickness and despair, we could not admit the 
justice of a law which visits the crime on the innocent party, and 
lets the guilty go free. Who is the criminal, the buyer or the 
seller? Why is it that these State governments of this free and 
enlightened country see fit to attempt the ruin of a community 
which can show as many noble and benevolent men as any other, 
and who represent in almost every place a large portion of its 
capital ? 

If a butcher, with his beaming countenance and blue apron, sells 
a pound of flesh to a dyspeptic individual with the look of misery 
ever present, and that dyspeptic, finding the same steak tough, 
endures after its consumption the torments of a warm region, is it 
the butcher's fault for selling the meat, or the dyspeptic's for buy- 
ing and consuming it? Again, if the aforesaid dj^speptic sallies 
forth under an indigestible hallucination that he is a madman, and 
commits some deed to prove his claim to the title, must we lay the 
deed at the door of the butcher, the dyspeptic, or the meat ? If 
the butcher, close up the meat shops, and prohibit the sale of 
meat. In our late civil war, what untold misery resulted from 
the use of firearms ; suppose it were possible to prohibit fire- 
arms, would the brethren of the North and South have sat down 
calmly together and smoked the T. D. of peace, or would they 
have made some substitute for rifles and bayonets, for muskets and 
sabres — some substitute yet more deadly and killing — and rushed 
at each other with the hate inspired by the bickering of a hundred 
years ? You, my dear sir or madam, whose impenetrable countenance 
can so well conceal that inward heart of which we all possess a 
share, where are our buried confidences so sacred to all but our- 
selves, what would be the result in your case ? apply it to theirs I 



23 

Hardly a day passes of late but we read accounts in the news- 
papers of suicides of every description, and from every cause. We 
hold the suicidist in great contempt, regarding him in almost 
every case as a moral coward, who is afraid to remain boldly on 
earth and fight out the battle of life, because he has doubts of the 
future or the present ; but, nevertheless, he is useful to us now as 
an illustration of the injustice of prohibition, which though so pal- 
pable to us as a sober-minded, unprejudiced observer, appears to be 
so little regarded by the immaculate disciples of cold water. The 
pale-faced, trembling wretch, or the bold, resolute, but maniacal 
wretch, who rushes into the druggist's and demands in piping or 
sepulchral tones a pint of laudanum, cannot be refused, if he but 
frame a lie as regards the usage he is going to make of the poison* 
The lie is easily uttered (those who fear neither death nor God are 
not likely to scruple about a lie) ; he goes home, locks himself in 
his room, takes the deadly liquid, and becomes acquainted with 
the Great Mystery. Now, who is responsible, the druggist or the 
man ; we may say the man ; the im maculates, the druggist. Then 
let us stop the sale of poisons of all natures. 

" But there is no analogy in these cases," remarks our disapprov- 
ing friend. " Pardon_us, there is. Do you not think that the habit- 
ual drunkard is perfectly well aware that he is rapidly ruining his 
health, and that the gratification of his appetite must end in death (as 
must the gratification of any other appetite, to great excess) ; it is 
a slow, lingering suicide ; a degrading, debasing death, which 
only the most brutalized mind, can resort to for any length of time. 
We are willing to acknowledge that excessive drinking renders the 
mind insensible to fine impulses and noble thoughts, but so does 
an undue indulgence in eating, or in other human passions. Can 
we prohibit everything? Can the immaculate few of cold water 
prohibit the Asiatic cholera and other scourges which devastate 
our cities, and render so many empty chairs around our tables ; 
can they prohibit the sale of all edibles in case they may contain 
substances injurious to health. 

An orange is good and nutritious, equally so for children and 
adults ; even our smiling, petite, great-eyed, and ever-joyous baby, 
at once the pride and plague of our households, may have one ; 
but if the young scamp on a tour of exploration in Baby-land hap- 
pens to fall in with a basket of golden fruit as big as himself, and 
thereupon proceeds to testify his delight by suffocating himself, 
and ruining his clothes with an enormous quantity of orauge, he 



24 fc 

may sicken and die. What killed him, his wilfulness, the orange, 
or the dealer? the dealer of course, for if the dealer had not sold 
the oranges the child could not have eaten them. Prohibit, then, 
the sale of fruit. We regret, fair ladies, that in the course of our 
cynicism, and dismay at the patience of a people who calmly rest 
under such an indignity and outrage as the present Maine law, that 
we are obliged, metaphorically speaking, to tread on your corns, 
for there can no use denying that we all have corns. Arsenic we 
know to be a very dangerous and subtile poison, doing the work of 
its master death in a complete and rapid manner ; but arsenic used 
continually, and taken in small quantities, is a great beautifier of 
the complexion, transforming the most obstinate skins into a fair, 
pure whiteness dangerously seductive no doubt to our friends of 
the mustaches and shirt collars ; but beauty must pay dearly for 
fictitious charms. Neither the new and wonderful process of 
enamelling which can make ninety a Venus, or the older and clum- 
sier adjuncts of the toilet, such as rouge, white-lead, lily-white, etc., 
can be used with impunity ; arsenic is the most rapid destroyer of 
them all. When in the hour of death, the poor vain spirit that has 
rapidly faded away, and whose beaut}' can no longer avail it, 
bewails its fatuity, who is it is to blame? — not the arsenic, not the 
pitiful and miserable vanity of the thing of earth, but the druggist 
who dwelleth in happy innocence of poisoned women, and who, 
wretched man, is accustomed to connect arsenic with rats. Let 
us, then, prohibit the druggists. 

Another gratification of the sense which once was confined to 
sunnier climes than these, but has of late been introduced with 
much success among our populace, bids fair to add another to the 
wondrous number of means of dying, possessed by the victims of 
drink ; it is the English opium, the Indian hasheesh, the curious 
substance that conjures up beautiful dreams and ecstatic visions, 
and renders the eaters thereof oblivious for a time of the very 
practical and monotonous existence which most of us lead here. 
Afuer repeated indulgence in the pleasure, the victim declines by 
slow degrees and dies ; many are succumbing to the effects of the 
noxious seed daily. The dealer, of course, is guilty, not the man. 

When the cold-water league of virtue and benevolence can pro- 
hibit the world from moving, then, and then alone, can they con- 
trol the thousand-and-one causes that combine to produce prema- 
ture death. If we allow a portion of these to the influence of 
drink ? it must be a very small portion indeed. Drink alone, unless 



25 

some wretch succumbs to the delirium tremens, is by no means 
destructive. The passions supposed to be aroused by the influence 
of drink, are, in general, the results of intemperate rage, which is 
itself a far more deadly poison. Then what motive have our sham 
temperance advocates, in prohibiting one evil out of thousands, 
that are daily destroying a portion of our populace ? What especial 
motive have they in ruining a class of men who are evei^where, 
according to our personal observation, as noble, disinterested, and 
generous, and as religious also, as the prohibitionists themselves? 
What interest have they in attempting to crush one trade, while 
thousands of others are thriving, productive of as much or more 
harm ? We are all answerable for selling, administering, or preach- 
ing something productive of harm, though we may be innocent as 
the angels of heaven of intending it. 

" The modiste who sells a bonnet to cette cliarmante femme what 
harm can come of it? Jealousy, envy, hatred, malice, despair, and 
a hundred other evil passions may be generated through the agency 
of that bonnet, but yet the modiste is not held responsible for the 
injury she is the cause of. She is not branded like Cain, made an 
outcast on the face of the earth ; she is not cast into prison, her 
famity ruined, and her husband despoiled. No ; she is engaged 
in a legitimate trade ! 

Here is a great confectionery, a confectionery that daily sells, 
and has to sell to succeed, thousands of pounds of candies of 
eveiy nature. Daily there are children dying around us from the 
immoderate use of sweetmeats ; in many of those tempting decoc- 
tions it has been discovered of late that there are poisonous sub- 
stances, which in time exercise a deleterious influence from which 
the child who uses them may never entirely recover. Then there 
are those oval, white lozenges, with the sweet love phrases that 
seem so sensible and apropos to us in youth, and so ridiculous as 
the years pass by, and we reach the true manhood of life, the mid- 
dle age ; who has ever compiled a statement of the amount of mis- 
chief worked in confiding hearts through those depraved lozenges? 
In the heat of summer we have ice-cream to cool us. Heated by a 
promenade in a sun of one hundred and twenty degrees, albeit we 
be attired in the lightest fashion, we rush into Copeland's on Court 
and Washington Streets, Boston, and order an immediate ice-cream, 
in a tone indicative of intense warmth, both of body and mind. 
Never pausing to consider the danger, the heartless confectioner 



26 

places before us the destructive yet enticing iceberg of cream ; we 
gormandize, are seized with spasms, and die. 

" Ridiculous man," our friend, the admirer of tea and other tem- 
perance fluids, exclaims, " how could you be so foolish? " 

" My dear sir, it was not our fault ; we are poor, injured, trodden 
upon mortals ; why, may we ask, are those outrageous confectioners 
allowed to parade their enticing dainties in their windows, and lead 
us wretched mortals to destruction? Why not prohibit the abom- 
inable trade, drive it into secret places, make it twice as destruc- 
tive as ever, and let men allow themselves to be led into privacy 
and dishonor? Are these all the evils the present generation has 
to contend with ? No. Who of us has not at one time or another 
ordered a dinner out of curiosity (or an empty purse) at a cheap 
eating house? Who of us has not become acquainted with the 
mysteries of hashed rat, of fly-blown sugar, of ant-eaten crackers, 
of mouldy bread, of sickening coffee, and of strong toast? who of 
us has not had our stomachs turned by the decayed meat and pota- 
toes or putrid fish put before us for fifteen cents the plate ? Who 
is to answer for the indignities thus thrust on mankind? Who is 
to tell who may not become a sacrifice to hashed meat and the rest ? 
It (of course) is not our fault that we indulge in the gratification 
of our appetite ; is it, my loved attach 3 of water ? No, it is the 
fault of the wretch who, fearing neither God nor man, spreads be- 
fore us in his window an appetizing repast, and lures our soul and 
body to ruin. It is awful to reflect on what may be done by a per- 
son, ordinarily not a saint, under the influence of a bad meal, — 
robbery, murder, anything. Let us, then, prohibit the victuallers 
and drive the trade into secret places. But our friend remarks : — 

" Well, sir, this sarcasm of yours is very well, but it does not 
touch the liquor question ; you surely do not mean to say, that 
there is another occupation on earth that does so much evil, as that 
of rum." 

" Yes, my dear sir, we emphatically do. How much harm, for 
instance, do you suppose false hair does? how much deceit and 
shame proceeds frojm the use of switches ? Jealousy is generally 
an offspring of love, jealousy may lead to murder ; love may pro- 
ceed from a switch. The creature who looks resplendent in a pound 
of golden locks may not gratify with a bare poll." 

There is no trade on earth which is not innocently the cause of 
some mischief, and there are many that, knowingly, cause more 
harm a thousand times than that of liquor. The vendor of liquors 



27 

makes a pleasing array of bottles in his window, or in his bar, and 
waits for customers. The bottle-nosed, habitual drunkard enters, 
and demands liquor ; it is served to him, and he departs poorer in 
purse, but richer in the nose ; does he rush forth and commit a 
crime? No ; our habitual drunkard is generally a very shaky indi- 
vidual, who is quite incapable of thinking for himself, and who 
usually recovers consciousness next morning in the station-house, 
where he marches forth with the haggard crowd of common drunks. 
Will prohibition cure this man of drinking? No, it will only add 
to his idle hours, and if he be bad, cause him to revenge his forced 
sobriety on some innocent head. But, see, another customer enters, 
a man with a dozen [devils lurking in his eye, and a swaggering 
aspect of courage; why does he drink so eagerly and so much? 
Perhaps he has determined on some horrible act of crime, some 
long-cherished revenge on a hated enemy, but the drink will not 
commit the murder, it will be the fiend in the man ; were the drink 
impossible to obtain, think not it would stay the murderer's hand. 
But the bar-keeper cannot always be a judge of human nature, or a 
physiognomist, and why, in the name of justice, is he to blame, if 
he aid and abet in a deed already resolved on ? When a man bent 
on shuffling off this mortal coil, and becoming acquainted in the lan- 
guage of our mighty poet-novelist, with that old, old story, death, 
purchases the poisonous drug from the druggist's apprentice, is the 
apprentice a murderer? 

We have quoted two cases, — the habitual drunkard and the 
desperate drunkard ; these are the exceptions, but the rule, my 
virtuous friend of total abstinence, is men like yourself, perhaps 
not in social position and plethoric purse, but in morality, charity, 
religion, and other virtues. Men of toil need some sustenance after 
a day's hard labor, and, in that case, the sustenance assists and 
cannot injure, nor does it ; men of all classes, who wish to enjoy a 
social glass and a pipe or cigar with a neighbor (or if they have not 
been married above a month, with their wife), and in whose glasses 
there is no " serpent," or a very jolly, harmless one only, surely. 
Come to these men and try the effects of moral suasion, and they will 
smile and tell you (we would, too, we assure you), " We have no 
desire to take the pledge, my dear sir, or madam (for ladies ought 
to have the most influence in the good work) ; liquor has never done 
us any harm ; our very physicians recommend a reasonable indul- 
gence. Talk to the drunkards ; we are obliged to you, but really it 
is a waste of time to ask us to give up our harmless glass of wine 



28 

or ale ! " Bat go to these men and say (remember, too, they form a 
large majority of the people of these States), " We have closed up 
your rwm-shops and defj^ you to find rum, we will seize it on your 
persons ; we will treat you like criminals ; we will show you what 
we are able to do ! " and there will be a spirit of resistance raised 
in the breasts of those men, which will not only crush like an egg- 
shell the party that will trample on the liberties of the people by a 
monstrous and unjust law, but may once again devastate this fair 
land by the foul fiend of fraternal rebellion. Oh, beware, then, ye 
immaculate few, who are 'so anxious in your day to attain the mil- 
lenium, beware ! The patience of the most patient people on the 
face of the globe cannot exist forever, nor will the people of these 
States allow one body of men to be trampled upon because they 
are singled out for a party adjunct. Prohibit everything : the 
clothes we wear, the food we eat, the very water which you are so 
fond of, and which so often poisons ; show the Creator how 
unwisely he has formed the world, and how much greater and wiser 
you are in your mortality, and let us behold the result. Let us 
have another Eden, and let man and woman wander about in inno- 
cence all the days of their life. Prohibit the earth from moving, 
and then will prohibition cease to be unjust. 



LEAP V. 



As far back as history and tradition extends, we have authority 
to prove that men and women drank intoxicating beverages of 
some nature. The Old Testament informs us that Noah was 
drunken, and, to judge from the circumstances of the case, exceed- 
ingly so. In various parts of the Bible, the immoderate use of 
liquor is reprobated, as it should be. The Bible is the corner-stone 
of the Christian religion ; were it disproved, the whole fabric would 
fall, and on faith alone it would be hard to build another. We 
know from the Bible that this beautiful earth of ours was created 
by a beneficent Creator, and, from the very fact of the marvellous 
perfection of his handiwork, we know that he must be all-powerful, 
and in every way superior to humanity in general ; therefore do 
we erect temples and worship him. Our cold-water readers may 
have felt horrified at our criminal encouragement of moderate in- 
dulgence in liquors ; let us now remind them that we have the 



29 

greatest of all authorities to form our belief. Wiry did God place 
in man the taste for liquor, if he intended it should not be drank? 
Why did he not render it obnoxious to our senses and cause us to 
loathe it? Why caused he the wheat and grapes to grow, and 
allow man to divine the use to which they might be put? 

" Mere sophistry," our esteemed acquaintance remarks. " You 
might as well inquire why, in any temptation placed in our path, 
is the devil allowed to live ? " Ay, we acknowledge that, but if 
it has pleased the being we call God to make our senses agree- 
able to the sight and taste of liquor, and to place in the ground 
such substances as will produce liquor, if, we say, he has been 
pleased to put the temptation in our path, and thus render it 
impossible for man to live without the knowledge of liquor, what 
presumption must puny mortality have, when it dares defy the 
Godhead, and say to the Almighty, " We like not your laws or 
temptations, and, at least, intend to have the regulation of these 
States in our hands " ; surely the result will be that the wrath of 
heaven will be called down upon a Godless people ! 

Hundreds of millions of the earth's inhabitants, of the same God, 
though different tenets, celebrate the last supper of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ under the name of the Sacrament. What 
were the articles used at that divine feast? In His parting' from 
His disciples, at that solemn hour when the betrayer of Jesus 
dipped his hand with Him into the same dish, wine was forever 
rendered sacred by the Holy Jesus: the perfect man, the founder 
of Christian faith, the One who came to show us that there was a 
God and that He was merciful, drank wine and gave it to Peter — 
the rock on which He built his church — and his other disciples. 
It seems sacrilegious to comment ludicrously upon the divine 
moments, so dear to the Christian faith, but can we not, with some 
show of truth, draw a comparison between Pilate and his myrmidons 
and the Major of Massachusetts and his police ? It would have 
been a scene worthy the pen of a Sterne or a Dickens, and the 
pencil of a Cruikshank, if, at that holy moment, when the renowned 
twelve were eating their last meal with the Holiest and Wisest of 
them all, Iscariot and a score of State police had entered and declared 
the liquor law in force in the Holy land. Can that be wrong which 
Jesus did ? Why drank He not cold water, and give it to his dis- 
ciples ? Was He ruining the souls and bodies of the holy twelve 
by giving them wine? Why did He offer the fatal cup? While we 
may vainly conjecture the true cause of the creation of this won- 



30 

drous sphere by God, certain it is that there are numerous influ- 
ences for good or evil, which He has placed with us to be conquered 
or yielded to ; these influences may be termed good and evil spirits, 
temptations, etc., but if, as is generally acknowledged, God is all- 
powerful, He must have foreseen that Adam would partake of the 
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Had it not 
been for this hankering after forbidden fruit, the world would not 
have been populated, and the liquor law unknown. If it was God's 
pleasure, then, to place liquor in the earth (whether regarded as a 
good or evil influence), and to open the eyes of men to the fact 
that it was in the earth, we would wish to know what fatuity can 
oppose the will of men to God, and how you, my virtuous friend, 
the prohibitory genius, can ally prohibition with religion, when the 
two are diametrically opposed to each other. Listen to the testi- 
mony of the New Testament, the universal law of God among 
Christian nations (we give our friends the credit of being some- 
what better than heathens, or else this chapter were lost). In the 
Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter XI, verse 19, may be 
found the following words : " The son of man came eating and 
drinking, and they say behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, 
and a friend of publicans and sinners ; but wisdom is justified of 
her children." 

What a world of meaning to the prohibitionist is there in that 
verse ; could the only perfect person that ever lived on earth, do 
wrong? Who are the Sadducees and Pharisees of the present day? 
How many Pecksniffian individuals do these enlightened States con- 
tain ? Christ not only drank wine himself, but gave it to others ! 
At the time the great preacher was doing His noble work in Pales- 
tine, thousands were watching his motions to learn the good from 
the evil ; if Christ by a few words had spoken abhorrently of drink- 
ing, not only those thousands, but the whole world of true Christians 
at the present day would have abstained, and would abstain here- 
after from drink ! But it was otherwise ; and so, according to our 
friend's creed, this indivisible part of God, Christ Jesus, is guilty 
of the sin of ruining men's souls instead of saving them. He en- 
couraged nuisances, and if He, the sainted king of kings, lived in 
our enlightened New England of to day, he would be (as in the 
ancient times) proclaimed a malefactor, a disturber of the peace, 
and a poisoner of our commonwealths ! It matters not the strength 
of that which He drank ; all beverages from beer up to alcohol, 
are, in a measure, intoxicating. Medford rum was then unknown, 



31 

but wine was cultivated assiduously, as we are informed tens of 
times in the New Testament. 

Again, in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, verses 27, 28, 
29, it says : " And he (Jesus) took the cup and gave thanks, and 
gave it to them, saying, * Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood 
of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of 
sins. But I say unto you I will not drink henceforth of the fruit 
of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in my father's king- 
dom.' " 

We are well aware that sophistry and intelligence combined can 
twist this phrase into a thousand different meanings, Anglican, Ro- 
man, Episcopalian, Unitarian, and many other " ans," but we think 
that there never was a clearer narration of facts written than the 
books of the New Testament, nor any history so well supported by 
four different testimonies as the four books by different authors of 
the life of Jesus. Then what inference must we draw from the 
words of the Godhead itself? why, that wine should not only be 
drank and tolerated on earth, but also is used in heaven; if the 
angels and all the hosts of heaven are criminal, we are dumb. The 
prohibitionists must surely have some comfort in dying, knowing 
that there is work for them in a sphere which we always considered 
better than any part of earth, but now find to be worse than New 
England ! ! Though wine is allowed in heaven, it must not be per- 
mitted in New England. " But," says my friend, by this time in 
a state of nervous agitation, and slightly dumfoundered apparently 
by our arguments, " there was war in heaven, but we are not there- 
fore to hold that war is good ! " 

So there was, but the war was not commended by the Christ (a 
part of God) as was the wine ; and, mark, not only does He drink, 
bless, and consecrate the wine, but tells his disciples that it is his 
blood. 

In the second chapter of the gospel according to St. John may 
be found these words : " And the third day there was a marriage 
in Cana of Galilee ; and the mother of Jesus was with him. And 
both Jesus was called, and his disciples to the marriage. And 
when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him, They 
have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do 
with thee, my time is not yet come. His mother saith unto the ser- 
vants, whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set 
there six water-pots of stone, after the manner of purifying the 
Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto 



32 

the m, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them to the 
brim. And he saith unto them, draw out now, and bear to the 
governor of the feast. When the ruler of the feast had tasted 
the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but 
the servants which drew the water knew), the governor of the feast 
called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, every man at the begin- 
ing doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk then 
that which is worse ; but thou hast kept the good wine until now ! " 

Now, if He who made the universe considered wine deleterious 
in its influence on health and morals, is it probable that he would 
have allowed His beloved son (whether we regard him while on 
earth as part of G-od, or merely perfect man) to turn this water 
into wine? Is it not probable that Jesus would have rebuked His 
mother and the company for wishing for that which was evil, instead 
of creating the evil, and thus setting an example for all ages to 
follow ! In this case the water of the prohibitionist was trans- 
formed into the wine of the license man, and by Christ Himself! 

In the fifteenth chapter of St. John, Christ says, " I am the true 
vine ; my father is the husbandman." He had millions of other 
similes to choose from, and yet He chose the vine, to illustrate His 
meaning. In Christ's many exhortations to the people of those an- 
cient times, we find the crimes that we are to avoid distinctly pro- 
claimed, and reiterated in various instances, Alas, how few of us 
heed them in this year of grace 1872 ! But in no case do we find an 
allusion to drinking, which, on the contrary, the divine man encour- 
aged by precept, action, and example ; there can be no doubt, that 
Jesus commended the moderate use of wine. 

" Well, acknowledging that" says my friend, now thoroughly 
eclipsed, " wine is a very light liquor, doing little harm ; let us 
abolish the sale of the stronger fluids." Two reasons may be 
given to show the impossibility of this. First, it would be another 
injustice put on the poor man's shoulders for the rich man's com- 
fort ; and, second, every liquor that ever has been thought of since 
liquor first was known, would be hereafter termed wine. We pro- 
nounce the prohibitory law a Godless one, because it pleased God 
at the creation to place in the world good and evil influnces, — 
he saw his work, and that it was good — and why is frail and 
wretched man to rise up rebellious, and attempt to dispute the 
wisdom of the Creator? 

The following views of an eminent English divine, anent " free- 
dom and sobriety," have come to our notice since the above was 
written. 



33 

" The Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Magee, whose speeches in 
England would be worth reading on any subject, and who goes 
further than most men in favor of stringent regulation of the liquor 
traffic, utterly denounces a prohibitory law. In a late address the 
bishop remarks, c If I am given the choice, I should say it would 
be much better, that England should be free, than that England 
should be sober/" 



LEAF VI. 

CONCLUSION. 

In framing laws for the world or for any country, be it monar- 
chical or republican, the first axiom must ever be that nothing 
impure, improper, irreligious, or immoral can proceed from the 
fountain-head of legislation ; and although it is admitted that laws 
may be enacted which time and circumstance render it necessary 
to amend or repeal, such action ought to originate from the highest 
power in the land ; if otherwise, it would give rise to the anomaly 
of a house divided in itself, which can never stand. 

Thus the laws of God are supreme, and laws enacted by man in 
opposition thereto would be unnatural and untenable ; likewise, 
laws enacted by a municipality conflicting with the general laws 
of the country would lead to confusion, and often to injustice, and 
to antagonistic positions between the government and the munici- 
pality. 

In the United States, while congress enacts the laws, each 
State has supreme power to pass local statutes ; the constitution, 
however, wisely provides that the laws passed by the State legisla- 
ture must not conflict with those passed by congress. 

Now we are aware that the importation and manufacture of 
wines, liquors, ale, cider, etc., is permitted by the United States ; 
nay, that tariff and internal revenue duties are collected on these 
articles of consumption, not in any one particular State, but tn 
every State of the Union, and let it be well understood that these 
duties are not collected for the importation and manufacturer, 
unless for consumption in the United States, if otherwise, they can 
be bonded for foreign countries. We have in every one of the 
New England States, custom houses and internal revenue offices, 
and officers of both without number, employed in collecting the 
5 



34 

several duties for consumption of articles (it seems almost incred- 
ible), the use of which the State legislature prohibits. 

The electors in these States who send representatives to the 
general courts of the State are likewise electors for members of 
congress, and it seems passing strange that, while they insist on 
prohibitory legislation in these few States, as a measure of reform 
and morality, they ignore it as a benefit for the whole country. 

If the measure is good, say we, abolish the importation and 
manufacture of the evil ; if bad, do not force it on a minority of 
the States, by a minority of electors ; if the latter minority is 
denied, risk a vote of the electors of each New England State, 
and the number of Anti-Prohibitionists brought out, will be, we 
boldly assert, ten to one, if a full vote and an honest opinion can 
be attained. 

We have considered the collection of duties on these goods, and we 
now proceed to the more gross abuse occasioned by the connection 
of federal and State laws. Monstrous as it would seem, it is nev- 
ertheless a fact, that the federal government exacts a license fee 
from every rectifier, of two hundred dollars ; from every wholesale 
dealer, of one hundred ; and from every retail dealer, of twenty-five 
dollars per annum, granting those several parties license to carry 
on their several aforesaid avocations at certain named places of 
business in the several New England States, well aware that such 
avocations are rendered illegal by the State legislature, thus giving 
license for a criminal act, receiving money from unlawful sources, 
and countenancing, abetting, and encouraging the violation of that 
State law which they, in opposition to all common sense and jus- 
tice, pronounce constitutional. The federal government collects, in 
addition monthly, one per cent upon all sales of over and above 
$25,000 per annum ; that is to say, the government receives one 
hundredth part of the amount realized from a traffic made criminal 
by these States, and thus clearly becomes a participator and partner 
in the crime committed ; yet the government escapes punishment 
while the individual must suffer. If this chapter is read by any 
legislator, in any other, even the most tyrannical, country on the 
face of the globe, we would be accused of drawing upon our imag- 
ination, as such flagrant injustice and inconsistency could never be 
believed ; and we cannot help but think our own government and 
those rare few of our so-called statesmen who are statesmen, would 
blush at the anomaly here laid bare. 

We must also remind the prohibitionist, that it is not honest to 



35 

draw gain from an illegal and criminal traffic, and yet he does so 
every hour of his existence ; the greater portion of the enormous 
war debt, a share of which he owes, is paid out of the liquor traffic, 
and the greater portion of the yearly estimate for the necessary 
public expenditures, both general, State, and local, of which license 
a share falls on him, is collected from thos e who deal in the pro- 
hibited articles. 

The connection of laws here pointed out, divests the public mind 
of the power of distinguishing good from evil ; a local statute con 
demns what a general statute allows ; confusion reigns supreme ; the 
citizen fails to fathom how that can be criminal in Boston which is 
legal in New York, or how he can be punished for an act encour 
aged by the highest authority whose license he holds. Thus crim 
inals are created who would have been honest men , respect for the 
laws is lost, as not sustained by public opinion ; and the ultimate 
result may lead to greater evils than the late revolution. Beware 
of encroachments on liberty ; the beginning we have before us ; the 
end none can see. 



THE END. 









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